Apple Cider Vinegar, the ‘true-ish’ story of wellness guru Belle Gibson

22 January 2025

Belle Gibson is a former Australian wellness influencer who claimed to have cured herself of several cancers by way of a diet, exercise, and alternative medicine regimen. Her story brought hope to others stricken with similar diseases. But it seemed too good to be true, and it was. Investigations later revealed Gibson had been healthy, and disease free, the entire time.

In addition, Gibson claimed to be making donations to a number of charities, through money she had raised, but these organisations saw little, if any, of these funds. Her story is the subject of a “true-ish” Netflix produced TV mini-series, Apple Cider Vinegar, trailer, which premieres on Thursday 6 February 2025.

I’m not quite sure about the “true-ish” tagline of the series. I take this to mean some of the story is factual, while some is fiction. Netflix say they did not speak to Gibson during production of the show, but worked “carefully” to fend off the possibility of legal action being taken against them.

Australian alternative music radio station Triple J turns fifty

22 January 2025

Australian alternative music radio station Triple J, originally known as Double J, launched fifty-years ago, on Sunday 19 January 1975. Here’s footage of their first few minutes on air (Instagram page), with DJ Holger Brockmann behind the microphone.

With a predominantly youth audience, Triple J especially has struggled with declining ratings in recent years, as large segments of their audience turn to social media for music listening, and discovery. The jays however have been making inroads through podcasts, and their Instagram and TikTok channels, which have sizable followings.

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Group blogs as social network alternatives? A thought experiment

22 January 2025

The Verge recently published a list of social network alternatives for people disillusioned with the likes of X, Facebook, Threads, and Instagram, to consider moving to. Having built-up a network of acquaintances and followers on these channels though, I’m not sure how many people would really consider migrating. Starting over, persuading contacts to relocate, might be a step too far for some. Still, there’ll be people determined to leave certain social network platforms.

But where will they go?

The Verge list includes many of the usual suspects. Bluesky, Mastodon, Snapchat, and Discord. There’s also a few that are new to me: Spill, Trust Cafe, Spoutible, and CounterSocial. Tumblr is also suggested, and might be one of the easier-to-adopt options, as the experience is somewhat similar to that of a micro-blogging platform. But you’d still have your work cut out getting your followers to join you there. Reddit is also listed, but be aware, your content might be used to train AI bots.

Conspicuous through absence from the list though are blogs. But aren’t blogs only for one person, I hear you asking. What use then are blogs as an alternative sort of social network? While it’s true many blogs are maintained by one person, some blogging platforms, including WordPress (WP), allow individual blogs to have multiple users. These are group blogs. Someone sets themselves up as an administrator, and then invites acquaintances to join. Blog-based social networks would be similar.

Here, a member’s user page would serve as their profile page, where biographical information can be added. From there someone would be able to post content — blog posts — as if they were doing so on Facebook or Instagram. As far as I know, there’s no limit to how many users (being admins, editors, authors, or contributors) a WP blog can have. This WP Website Tools post suggests millions. I’m not sure a blog-based social network would have millions of users, but it could have a lot.

Such a setup would need to be hosted on a robust web server, capable of handling what might be heavy user traffic. This would entail cost, but if this were shared among members, it may not be onerous. It might be a small price to pay. Members of a blog-based (private) social network would no longer need to concern themselves with the whims, and rules and regulations, of a billionaire tech-bro. Nor would algorithms be a problem. Sure, it would be different. But it would be independent.

To be clear, this sort of idea is not going to be for everyone, in fact it’s not going to be for most people. Certainly not influencers (but you never know). And probably not anyone not comfortable with setting up a self-hosted blogging application (such as WP), on a web server. But on the plus side, members would be part of a social network they controlled under their own terms. These networks might need “community” guidelines of some sort, but I doubt these would need to be expansive.

Of course, anyone hoping to escape from the mainstream social networks, to a blog-based social network, would still have to convince their acquaintances to follow them over. There’s probably more questions than answers. There would be a learning curve for some people. So maybe we’re back to square one. And yes, this thought experiment of mine is WordPress-centric (since I use WP), but no doubt there are other blogging platforms with similar functionality. Still, this might be an option.

Will the good old, friendly web, of twenty years ago, stand up

21 January 2025

Enrique Rey, writing at EL PAÍS:

Like all nostalgic escapism, the myth about a world wide web before the age of sarcasm (and the dominance of big companies) where everything was more sincere and simpler is a melancholic trap. The Austrian poet Ingeborg Bachmann wrote that when you turn 30 you discover the ability to remember, and those who were teenagers when broadband was installed in most homes are now that age. That is why the internet has filled up with memories of itself, although, with some effort, it is still possible to find new things full of a collaborative spirit. “There is still a lot of kindness on the internet. You just have to go to YouTube and watch those videos about how to fix a specific washing machine,” says Gómez. “A lot of content is a sign of goodwill; the real Youtuber is the one who has 10 views on each video. There are a lot of sweet, practical, erratic, very strange things there, and also a lot of people helping others selflessly,” she notes.

Even though I sometimes think the web of the late 1990’s was a friendly online world.

One difference (of many) between the web of today, and that “simpler, less complicated” web of twenty-plus years ago, is the bloated noise to signal ratio, and, and, social media (and social media influencers), which are combining to choke out this friendly web, which is very much still there.

If only you know where to find it.

Rey makes no mention of indie web/small web, but if you’re seeking out that old, friendly online world of decades passed, then indie web/small web is one place where you’ll find, or rediscover, it.

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The Shortlist for the Australian 2025 Indie Book Awards

20 January 2025

The Australian Indie Book Awards span six categories: fiction, non-fiction, debut fiction, illustrated non-fiction, children’s, and young adult, and last week the shortlist for the 2025 awards was published. My main interest is fiction, where Dusk by Robbie Arnott, and The Ledge by Christian White, are among contenders in that category.

I’m yet to read Dusk, but finished The Ledge in four days flat. Record time, for me, in recent years. White’s thriller/crime stories, with twists that leave you breathless, are verifiable page turners. That is was holidays contributed to the fast read. On that basis, The Ledge is my favourite in fiction. The winners will be announced on Monday 24 March 2025.

That might give me time to read Dusk, plus Cherrywood by Jock Serong, and Juice by Tim Winton, the other titles shortlisted in the fiction category, beforehand.

Time to replace the BMI as a measure, or otherwise, of obesity

20 January 2025

The Body Mass Index (BMI), may, at last, be about to be shown the door. Health care experts from across the world have been calling for a new means of defining obesity, according to research published by The Lancet:

We recommend that BMI should be used only as a surrogate measure of health risk at a population level, for epidemiological studies, or for screening purposes, rather than as an individual measure of health. Excess adiposity should be confirmed by either direct measurement of body fat, where available, or at least one anthropometric criterion (eg, waist circumference, waist-to-hip ratio, or waist-to-height ratio) in addition to BMI, using validated methods and cutoff points appropriate to age, gender, and ethnicity.

It’s always struck me as an odd way to determine whether a person is of a healthy, or otherwise, weight, simply by dividing their height by their weight.

My BMI has always been in the OK zone, but I often wondered how it could useful for people who are, say, professional athletes, or front-rowers of the Wallabies. Surely their height to weight ratios would send the BMI into meltdown. I queried a past GP about this, who told me the BMI was but one tool available to medical professionals, but did not elaborate further.

I made me immediately think if there are other such measures, why aren’t they used more widely.

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How to fact check in places where Facebook is the whole internet

20 January 2025

Upcoming changes to Meta’s fact checking and content moderation policies might precipitate greater free speech in some parts of the world. But the removal of these checks and balances could trigger unrest and violence in other regions, say Libby Hogan and Natasya Salim, writing for ABC News:

Nobel laureate and Filipino journalist Maria Ressa warned of “extremely dangerous times ahead” for journalism and democracy. Celine Samson, a fact-checker with Vera Files, said roles like hers were especially important during the last election. Vera Files recorded a rise in misinformation posts that used a particularly dangerous tactic in the Philippines — portraying opposition leaders as communists. While the term “communist” may seem relatively harmless elsewhere, in the Philippines, it can be life-threatening.

In countries where Meta platforms are among other media channels, questionable content can potentially be disputed, but that’s not the case everywhere. In some places, Meta’s social networks are considered to be the internet. The removal of fact checking and content moderation controls in those environments could have dire consequences.

My blog is powered by my obsessions

18 January 2025

What makes for a good blog? Merlin Mann, writing in 2008, the golden age of blogging if ever there was one, has a few answers to the question:

Good blogs reflect focused obsessions. People start real blogs because they think about something a lot. Maybe even five things. But, their brain so overflows with curiosity about a family of topics that they can’t stop reading and writing about it. They make and consume smart forebrain porn. So: where do this person’s obsessions take them?

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Demolishing the AC/DC house, and what little rock history Australia has

18 January 2025

I’m not really a fan of the band that was formed in Sydney in 1973, and is still going strong, but it seems odd that the house where founders, brothers Angus and Malcolm Young used to live, and founded AC/DC, was not worthy of preserving. For those not in the know, AC/DC are probably Australia’s version of the Rolling Stones. But last month, the residence, in the inner-west Sydney suburb of Burwood, was bulldozed to make way for a high rise apartment block.

This might sound like over-development on steroids, but many parts of Australia, including Sydney, are experiencing accommodation shortages, and high density housing is one of the solutions. While numerous people, including the local municipal council, were aware of the house’s history, this was not enough to spare the property. Mind you, I’m not sure how the house could have been kept, and somehow integrated in the much needed residential development.

For more about the story of the “AC/DC house”, and its demolition, check out this short YouTube clip by Sydney Morning Herald writer, Tom Compagnoni.

Vale American filmmaker, storyteller, David Lynch

18 January 2025

The director of Eraserhead, The Elephant Man, and the surely surreal Mulholland Drive, died on Thursday 16 January 2025. We shall watch Mulholland Drive, which is in the home movie library, this weekend in his memory.

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